5 Travel Brands Winning on Social Media for the Week Ending August 8, 2014

Joyce Manalo, Skift

- Aug 08, 2014 11:00 am

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Airlines are not only flying to destinations, it’s getting hip to local culture enough to share it.

— Joyce Manalo

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The contenders for top travel brands on social media this week were the same as the last, but for different reasons. All in all, the gains were not as high but the content ranged from usual aircraft glossy photos to world culture.

Each Friday, we call out travel brands that have stronger than usual activity on social media. Using SkiftIQ, we’re able to track current performance versus past (60-day averages, unless otherwise noted) as well as notice spikes in activity that demonstrate a brand either has a viral hit on its hands, or a public relations mess to clean up.

This airline continued to outpace the other brands this week on both Facebook and Instagram. It shared the joys of travel stamps in passports, local cuisine, and plane design. On Facebook, its fans jumped up by 200% and on Instagram by 125% on August 5 and 7.

The Dominican Day Parade is taking place this Sunday, August 10 in New York City. Being that Dominican Republic is one of the destinations that JetBlue flies to, why not celebrate the country’s culture with by giving back — books for entry to win free flight vouchers. For two days, it doubled its Daily Twitter Follower Average from 310 Followers/Day to 650/Followers/Day.

Most of the Twitter status updates by Air New Zealand were positive. There were only a handful where complaints were addressed with sharing an email for further assistance. This past week the airline had 83% more status updates than normal.

Last week, the #BestSummerEver campaign showed the most gains on Instagram with its mini-bloggers completing its last minute jaunts, this week, the gains are on Twitter. Suggestions were given and shared on how to have the best summer ever. On average its Twitter Followers increase by 620 Followers/Day, but this week it rose by 73% to 1,070 Followers/Day.

For four days straight, KLM gained 65% more Instagram followers each day that its daily average. It started to publish photos with nearly the same volume it had before the Malaysia Airline Flight 17 tragedy. This week, it posted three images of happenings at airports with aircraft de-icer traning, cloud inspired wall, and a photo shoot at an air hanger. From August 5 to 7, it increased its daily average by 65% from its normal activity of 132 Followers/Day to 217 Followers/Day.